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Taiwan's call-filtering app giant Gogolook breaks into the Fintech sector
Taiwan-based app developer Gogolook, best known for its call-filtering app Whoscall, announced the business expansion in a completely new sector - Fintech this January.
Established less than a decade ago, Gogolook was originally a side project by three friends. They gathered public resources and compiled a database for the first edition of Whoscall, an app that identifies unknown callers. Later when the user base started to grow, they turned to crowdsourcing.
Over the years, they developed a database with over 700 million phone numbers with help of the government, telecom companies, and AI. Upgrading the app by adding wider functions such as unknown text identification, reverse number search, and a callers' blacklist. Whoscall has expanded its service regions outside Taiwan such as South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Brazil.
While many businesses grappled with the economic downturn brought by the pandemic, Whoscall is thriving due to a surge in misinformation and fake news circulated globally since the outbreak. In 2020, Whoscall had blocked more than 280 million scam calls and text messages, a 190% increase than the year before.
To this day, the app has reached over 20 million downloads globally. Additionally, Gogolook's co-founder Jeff Kuo was awarded the Presidential Innovation Award in September 2020 for coming up with the idea of Whoscall.
Ambition swell with its fundraising journey
Envisioned to revolutionize the way people communicate and build trust among each other, Gogolook is one of the lucky few startups that catch attention from the public and investors early on.
During its first year, Google's then-CEO Eric Schmidt openly praised the app as Taiwan's new model of innovation during his visit to the territory, bringing the app into the public's eyes.
A year after its debut, Naver, the Korean internet company which is also the owner of the popular messaging app Line, acquired the company for NT$529 million (US$17.6 million).
In 2018, Gogolook announced raising NT$345 million (US$11.7 million). The money was invested in recruiting talents with AI expertise and expanding the business to Southeast Asia. In 2019, the company landed an undisclosed investment from Cathay Sustainable PE Fund in return for a 30% stake.
Partnership with Auntie Meiyu
With the large sum of investment in hand, Gogolook is not only keen on perfecting Whoscall but also strives to form an anti-fraud ecosystem.
Last year, Gogolook partnered with another Taiwan-based fraud prevention mobile app Auntie Meiyu. Founded in 2018, Auntie Meiyu is a fact-checking chatbot on messaging app Line that identifies disinformation circulated among group chats and verifies credible information.
The partnership enables Auntie Meiyu to expand its fact-checking database and to bring new features such as unknown phone numbers and Line account identification and a privacy check on whether personal data has been exposed in data breaches. In return, the partnership helps Gogolook expand its user base, strengthening its mission to create an all-round anti-fraud environment. A year into their partnership, Auntie Meiyu is planning to enter Thailand and Japan's markets.
Tapping into the Fintech market with Roo
Soon after Auntie Meiyu's partnership, Gogolook debuted its second flagship product Roo.
Roo is a financial technology (FinTech) platform designed for people who plan to apply for a personal credit loan. Based on the applicant's case, it compares loan rates, handling fees, and repayment plans of six major banks: Cathay, KGI, HSBC Taiwan, Citibank Taiwan, Standard Chartered Taiwan, and O-Bank. On the other hand, once the platform obtained authorization from the applicant, through utilizing Gogolook's anti-fraud database and AI technology, Roo will send banks information about credit Invisibles, for example, the credibility of the applicant's phone number, consumer preferences, to evaluate credit risk.
Additionally, Roo provides online one-on-one consulting services on Facebook and Line where applicants can make inquiries, check their eligibility, and find the solution specific to their needs.
The idea of an anti-fraud loan comparison platform comes from Gogolook's co-founder Jeff Kuo's trip to the Philippines and his observation on the overall loan sector. During his trip, he learned from the partnership between ride-hailing company Grab and a Japanese financial services company Credit Saison that there are many ways to judge a loan applicant’s credibility in addition to the traditional pathway, which is the credit score issued by the bank.
"Fraud is a serious problem in the loan industry. Many people get scammed when applying for a loan. In addition, many blue-collar workers are paid in cash, and therefore don't have banking records. Known as 'credit invisibles' to the banking industry, banks don't have enough information to determine their credit scores, and thus avoid lending to them," Jeff Kuo, co-founder of Gogolook said in an interview.
Looking forward, Kuo hopes to extend its database to credit card applications, insurance purchases, and retail investing, ultimately becoming a fully-fledged financial solutions platform.
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